Egypt: ITP fellow reunion
Rebecca Horton, International Training Programme Coordinator
On Tuesday 3rd April the British Embassy in Cairo kindly hosted an evening on the terrace for Egyptian International Training Programme (ITP) fellows. Claire and I travelled to Egypt to attend, as did Neal Spencer and the British Museum’s (BM) Director, Hartwig Fischer. We were also delighted to be joined by colleagues who had taken part in the Egypt Documentation Project supported by Arcadia and by friends and supporters of the ITP around Cairo.
The ITP developed from a programme which took place in 2004 & 2005 when Egyptian colleagues attended training run by the BM’s Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan. As Egypt has been a part of the programme since it’s inception, this was an amazing opportunity for Claire and Neal to catch up with a large group of fellows and documentation project colleagues. For myself, this was a chance to meet so many colleagues for the first time, after two years of email based conversations!
There was a feeling of celebration in the air, as colleagues with both special working and personal relationships gathered together. Speeches were given by the Deputy Ambassador Helen Winterton and Hartwig Fischer, both recognised the magic of Egypt, the enthusiasm and energy of it’s museum professionals and the need to continue with such productive and close relationships.
Thank you to the British Embassy for hosting such a wonderful evening and to Carol Kamel for coordinating the event.
Meanwhile, Claire and I also met with colleagues at the Abdeen Palace Museum, Coptic Museum, Egyptian Museum, Egyptian Textile Museum, the Gayer Anderson Museum, Grand Egyptian Museum, Museum of Islamic Art and National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation. We will be updating you on the projects the ITP network have been working on in these museums, and sharing photographs of our trip over the coming weeks…
